Over the past two weeks we prepared the land in the Kentucky State University Energy Farm Study for planting. We started with a freshly-cut hay field that has grown an alfalfa and grass mixture for the past three years. It is rich in organic matter and naturally-fixed nitrogen, so we chose not to add additional fertilizer in the first year of the study. The soil preparation process differed between our three production systems:

1. Biointensive plots were cleared with a hoe, then double dug with a spade, spading fork, and broadfork. All labor was done by hand over the course of a week.
   
   
2. Market garden plots were prepared with two passes of a roto-tiller attached to a 13 hp BCS 852 walk-behind tractor, fueled by gasoline. The roto-tiller passes were spaced two weeks apart to allow sod to decompose after the initial cultivation.
   
   
3. Small farm plots were prepared with a single pass of a moldboard plow attached to an 89 hp John Deere 5520 tractor, fueled by diesel. The plow was followed, two weeks later, with two passes of a roto-tiller, pulled by the same tractor.
   
   

The following charts show the amount of labor and energy used to complete the soil preparation process at each of the three farm scales. Labor use is in minutes per square meter of land. Energy use is in megajoules per square meter of land (1 megajoule = 239 food calories). Error bars show the standard error, which is a measure of the variability between plots that were treated the same way.

The small farm plots cover about 40 times as much land as the biointensive plots, and 6.5 times as much as the market garden plots. (A previous blog post showed relative plot size on an aerial photograph of the site.)

We spent 20 hours clearing sod and double digging the biointensive plots, 2.5 hours using the walk-behind tractor in the market garden plots, and 3.0 hours on the 4-wheeled tractor in the small farm plots. The walk-behind tractor consumed 3.7 liters (1.0 gallon) of gasoline and the 4-wheeled tractor consumed 34.5 liters (9.1 gallons) of diesel fuel.

Michael Bomford provides research and extension services related to organic agriculture and small-scale renewable energy production through Kentucky State University's Land Grant Program. He thanks Brian Geier, John Rodgers, Hank Schweickart and Tony Silvernail for their help with preparing the land for planting.

On Tuesday I went to a field day on no-till tobacco production. Tobacco is a warm season solanaceous crop -- like tomatoes or peppers -- that is usually transplanted into freshly-tilled soil in late spring. After fall harvest the remaining stubble is usually left to decompose in the bare soil until the next spring, when the plow comes around again.

In recent decades people have started to recognize that soil suffers when it's left bare, or routinely disturbed by cultivation. Bare soil is susceptible to wind and water erosion. Cultivation destroys the soil structure, further increasing its susceptibility to erosion. Cultivation also introduces a lot of oxygen to the soil very quickly, resulting in a brief boom in the microbial population, and a rapid depletion of the soil organic matter that the microbes eat. (Organic matter is a valuable component of soil because it holds on to the nutrients and water that plants need; soil microbes help release nutrients into the soil solution, making them accessible to plants, and exude sticky material that holds soil particles together, reducing soil's susceptibility to erosion.) In the long term, cultivation reduces soil organic matter content and soil microbial populations.

No-till grain production is now fairly common, but very few farmers grow transplanted crops, like tobacco, without cultivating. It turns out that one of them happens to be a sixth-generation Kentucky farmer who took the 'Introduction to Sustainable Agriculture' course that I co-taught last semester. The field day was at his farm.

We saw a nice demonstration of how soil that hasn't been tilled holds together better than soil that is routinely cultivated. Clods of soil collected from sections of the farm that hadn't been cultivated for 10 years were suspended in water next to a clod collected from a routinely cultivated section. You can see the clod on the left disintegrating while the clod in the middle holds firm:

After harvest the land is seeded to a winter cover crop that protects the soil from winter erosion, saves nutrients that might leach out of the soil in the absence of plants, and feeds soil microbes. The farm is experimenting with different winter cover crop mixes, most of which include a nitrogen-fixing legume species.

At the Kentucky State University Research and Demonstration Farm we often use a mixture of rye, which grows quickly and out-competes weeds; and hairy vetch, which fixes nitrogen and twines its way up the rye. Here are the two plants together, towering over a yardstick:

Nitrogen-fixing crops like hairy vetch harbor bacteria in their roots that are able to convert nitrogen gas from the air around us into nitrogen that is available to plants. A winter cover crop of hairy vetch can add more than 100 pounds of nitrogen to the soil per acre (Kansas State University pdf), enough to feed a nitrogen-demanding crop like corn.

Of course organic farmers have been using nitrogen-fixing cover crops for decades; the organic standards don't allow synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. Conventional farmers have known about the advantages of cover cropping, but using nitrogen fertilizer has long been cheaper than managing cover crops. Soaring fertilizer prices have changed that. Suddenly tactics like no-till production and cover cropping aren't just better for the soil; they're cheaper, too.

Michael Bomford provides research and extension services related to organic agriculture and small-scale renewable energy production through Kentucky State University's Land Grant Program.

I just spent three days talking about biofuels with other scientists who work at historically black land grant universities. These institutions exist in most southern states because of an 1890 law requiring states to either set up a land grant institution for people of color or demonstrate that race was not an admission factor at their existing institution. Kentucky State University, where I work, is one of these '1890 land grants.'

The 1890 land grants are interesting because of their mission to serve under-served constituencies, including minorities and people with limited resources. The 'get big or get out' prescription sometimes associated with land grant universities ought to be an anathema to 1890 land grant universities.

This week's meeting was called to explore ways for 1890 land grants to contribute to USDA goals, including "the development of biofuels and processes to efficiently convert renewable plant products to fuel." It came at a time when food prices are skyrocketing and people are going hungry, in part because a growing proportion of America's corn is being turned into fuel.

At one point I expressed to a USDA economist my opinion that the large scale corn to ethanol program has been a complete failure, neither reducing carbon emissions, nor contributed to energy independence. The economist surprised me with his defence that neither of these were program objectives. The real goal, he said, was to raise corn prices. By that measure the program has been a resounding success(!).

After three days of intense discussion we hammered out a list of research objectives for 1890 land grants working on biofuels. They are:

1. Identify, produce, characterize and improve alternative feedstock crops.
2. Develop and optimize small scale technologies for biofuel production.
3. Evaluate and improve biofuel and byproduct quality.
4. Educate and train students, farmers, and other professionals regarding biofuels.
5. Analyze economic, environmental and social impacts of biofuel production and use.

So those are my guiding principles as I continue to participate in the Energy Farms Network and collaborate with the Post Carbon Institute. Over the summer I'll work with researchers from Virginia State University and North Carolina A&T University to pull together a full proposal, based on these objectives, for a collaborative project involving all eighteen 1890 land grant universities.

Some of my current research is funded by Southern SARE, so I took note when the organization released a position paper on the type of biofuel research it will fund in the future. SARE identifies eight themes for future projects to "expand the focus in bioenergy beyond corn- and soybean-based ethanol and biodiesel:"

1. Energy conservation and efficiency;
2. Energy efficient production practices;
3. Non-biomass renewable energy sources;
4. Alternative biomass feedstock production systems;
5. Environmental impact of bioenergy production;
6. Community and rural development impacts of bioenergy production;
7. Local and regional economic impact of biofuel production; and
8. Whole farm integrated energy systems.

It looks like the Energy Farms Network is on the cutting edge.

-----

• The goal is to feed more people, not fewer people. There is an old adage that has already been quoted about putting all your eggs in one basket. If I were one of those fifty people who was being fed by only one farmer, I'd be more worried than if there were four or five-or ten. Suppose the one farmer dies?
• Two and a half percent of the population is feeding all the rest. That is very small. And as far as I can see, nobody is worrying about where the cutoff point is. There is always a bottom half. We are always concerned about eliminating the bottom half because we say they're inefficient. I think that our doctrine of efficiency is suspect anyway because it only applies to major quantities. We waste stuff at our place all the time because we can't sell it. It's too little to sell. You can't give it away unless you cook it for somebody.
• How small do you let the percentage of farmers get before you are in danger? We have no alternative energy source on the farm now. When one farmer's feeding fifty people he is absolutely dependent on petroleum. When the economy shifts to reflect the realities of energy, it may be too expensive to produce some of this food; certainly at current prices.
• --Wendell Berry, 1974 http://www.tilthproducers.org/berry1974.htm

The Kentucky State University Energy Farm project is just beginning its first field season. We grew vegetables through the winter in our solar-heated high tunnel; now we are beginning to move outdoors, where a thick winter cover crop of rye and hairy vetch has been building soil organic matter and nitrogen levels. Temperatures still sometimes dip below freezing at night (we had frost on Tuesday!), but the first of our cool-season vegetables -- like peas, lettuce, and kale -- have been braving the temperature swings outside for the past month.

Our project will incorporate both food and energy crops: The energy crops -- sweet sorghum, sweet potato, corn, and soybean -- are all warm-season crops that will be planted in late May. Each of these crops is high in carbohydrates, making them either high-calorie food for humans or a source of sugars, starches, or oils that could be used for biofuel production.

We will grow our energy crops at three different scales. The smallest scale will be a biointensive system, in which only hand tools are used. Our medium scale will be a market garden system, using a combination of hand tools and a walk-behind tractor with attachments. The largest scale system will be tractor-based. We will measure the land, labor and energy use efficiency of production at each of these scales.

Plots representing "Biointensive," "Market Garden" and "Small Farm" scales are replicated four times. Each plot will grow the same mix of multi-use crops. The smallest ("Biointensive") plots will be managed with hand tools; the largest ("Small Farm") will be managed with conventional tractors and attachments. (Image prepared by Tony Silvernail).

The data collected from this experiment will allow us to analyze effects of farm scale on resource use efficiency, and to answer questions about farmer motivation to dedicate multi-use crops to food or fuel production under a range of possible future scenarios for land, labor and energy pricing.

It is somewhat amusing to see the Wall Street Journal cover
this topic.  After all, they are the
paper of Wall Street, which I imagine has a “look down the nose” attitude about
the people who grow food for a living, especially small-scale farmers who don’t
use giant machines or buy inputs from Fortune 500 companies.   Perhaps I need to get over a prejudice?

Check out what this reporter did…and on page A1 to boot:

Green Acres II:
When Neighbors
Become Farmers

Suburban
Arugula Is
Organic and Fresh, but
About That Manure...

By KELLY K. SPORS
April 22, 2008; Page A1

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882472974233235.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

Not bad!  The people
doing this work are good looking, young, suburbanites.  Probably makes it more palatable to the
readers because they can relate to them. 

The music on the video included at the web site, however, is
kinda hill-billyish.  I enjoy banjos and
blue grass myself, but don’t know any farmers of the generation depicted who
listen to it regularly.  If more young
farmers are needed, it might be better to associate them with rock stars
instead. 

I appreciated the coverage of the SPIN farming method:  http://www.spinfarming.com/

It is great that there is now a marketed entry path to
farming in urban/suburban areas.  I would
like to point out where SPIN differs from what we are advocating in the Energy
Farm Program.  The article explains:

Start-up costs for a
one-eighth-acre farm run about $5,500, says Ms. Christensen of Spin-Farming.
That includes a walk-in cooler to wash and store fresh produce, a rotary tiller
and a farm-stand display. Annual operating expenses, including seeds and
farmers-market stall fees, can add about $2,000. Such a farm can generate
$10,000 to $20,000 in annual sales, she says. That's "an entry point into
farming to see if they have a talent for it," Ms. Christensen says.
"Those that do will eventually be able to expand and increase that income
level quite substantially."

Where we differ is in the use of hand tools instead of
rototillers, and passive cooling techniques instead of walk-in coolers
requiring electricity.  Also, we would
probably be more circumspect about the inputs of manure and other fertilizers
and ask farmers to work on green manure cover cropping and compost making on
site instead.  This is all about the need
to “get off the sauce” of oil, and fossil fuels in general.  Good hand tools are incredibly efficient at
the scale needed for home-scale veggies (http://www.energyfarms.net/node/1509
).

The Wall Street Journal does have some great reporters.  Good going Kelly!  Too bad the editorial pages of the WSJ are
full of garbage about energy and climate issues. 

Last year we developed a toolset that allowed us to clear an
abandoned baseball field of perennial sod and convert it into a vegetable
producing mini-farm. This petrol-free toolset included a low-wheel cultivator made by Glaser
and a two-foot wide broadfork. It is quite likely that we used these tools
in a more rigorous way then they were intended, (opening new land instead of
working pre-established vegetable beds), yet the tools withstood hours of work
with only a handful of needed repairs. After last year’s experience we consider the combination of the broadfork and the low-wheel cultivator to be an appropriate
toolset for small-scale vegetable cultivation because they efficiently use manual
labor in place of fossil fuel powered equipment to prepare vegetable beds.

This blog will revisit our method for preparing vegetable beds
in light of the fact that we are no longer fighting against tough perennial sod,
and instead, we are removing our over-winter cover crops.

Step 1: Removing Cover Crop

We use a sharp scythe to cut the cover crop off as low to
the ground as possible. Once the crop has fallen we rake up the remains and
cart it off as a nitrogen input to our compost piles. In the earliest part of spring,
we are careful to remove only the cover-crop from the vegetable beds that we immediately
plan to prepare for transplant or direct seeding. This allows the other areas
of cover crop to continue growing as much as possible in the increased
temperatures and daylight hours of spring.

Jason Using Sharp Scythe to Clear Cover Crop

Cover Crop Cut Close to the Ground With Scythe

Step 2: Breaking Ground

After the cover crop has been removed we are left with the
gentle stubble of annual cereals and legumes. We have noticed that the loam soil is
quite soft and easy to work with, and we attribute this to the fact the area we are working was established last year. A prime consideration at this stage of bed preparation
is soil moisture. We want to be careful not to work the soil too wet or we will
remove an unnecessary amount of soil as we cut through the stubble of the annual
cover crops.

Low Wheel Cultivator Cutting Into Soil

Step 3: Loosening the Bed

After the stubble of the previous crop has been broken free
from the soil, the next step is to broadfork the soil. The broadfork is two
feet wide and includes five tines that sink into the soil about ten inches. It
is amazing how much easier it is to broadfork the soil this season than it was
last year. We have changed the width of our beds this year from 5-foot wide beds to
4-foot wide beds. This change has put us into some areas of soil that is
similar to last year when we had to combat the sod. Pushing the broadfork into
the previously worked sections versus the reclaimed sod sections really shows
what one-years-worth of work accomplished for reducing compaction and improving
aeration. Again we want to be aware of soil moisture, so that we do not smear
wet soil together in the prying and lifting action of the broadfork.

Chris Sinking Broadfork into and Prying Down

Step 4: Cross-cut the sod and rake

After the bed has been forked, there are entire clumps that
have been lifted and are uneven. We use the low-wheel cultivator with a 3-tine cultivator attachment to
cross cut the bed and thereby remove the clumps. By the time we are finished with
cross cutting we have up to five inches of loose soil on the surface which
makes a good seedbed. It is also easy to transplant into the newly cross
cut bed. If we intend to seed the bed we rake the surface smooth and make sure
there is no trash that could interfere with the drill-seeder.

Jason Cross-Cutting Bed with Three-Tine Cultivator

We like this toolset because it clears an area of grass or
cover crop and produces a vegetable bed that is suitable for
direct seeding or transplant. In this method the soil remains loose and aerated
up to ten inches and it does not entail the soil disruption of double digging
or rototilling. By making sure to compost the soil and debris that is removed from
the area in which you intend to make a bed, you make a good step toward sustainable
soil management in which no soil is lost and on-site nutrients are cycled back
into the beds in the form of compost.

If you are curious you can click here to check out and contrast our
bed preparation method from last year.

The attached PDF contains:

- crop layout

- calculations of plant numbers

- planting successions

- theoretical calore yield

- theoretical compost yield

- calculation of share numbers

- planting calendar

- harvest calendar

Updated Crop Assessment for Sebastopol Energy Garden

At the Sebastopol Energy Garden eggs account for a large portion of the calories that we produce. Of the estimated 1,476,765,3 calories that we can produce over the next growing year, 136,218 of that comes in the form of eggs.

On average our flock of five chickens produces an egg/chicken/day, each weighing roughly 61g, and containing 93.3 calories.

Supporting a flock of chickens; however, requires energy as well. Each chicken needs at least 200 calories/day to survive, and while about 30% of those calories can be obtained by foraging, the other 70% needs to be provided for them. Our chickens are allowed access to the compost piles and obtain some additional calories from the food scraps we recycle, but this is not enough.

Because hens allocate so much of the protein that they consume toward egg production it is also essential that we support the needs of our flock by providing a protein rich feed for them. It is recommended that 16% of a chicken's diet be protein.

Recommended Daily Value (chicken): 200 cal/day
(5 chickens) (365) = 365,000 cal/ year

FOOD SOURCE % PROTEIN, BY WT

Dried fish flakes 76
Dried liver 76
Dried earthworms 76
Duckweed 50
Torula yeast 50
Brewers yeast 39
Soybeans (dry roasted) 37
Flaxseed 37
Alfalfa seed 35
Beef, lean 28
Earthworms 28
Fish 28
Sunflower seeds 26.3
Wheat germ 25
Peas & Beans, dried 24.5
Sesame seed 19.3
Soybeans (boiled) 17
Wheat bran 16.6
Oats, whole 14
Rice polish 12.8
Rye 12.5
Wheat 12.5
Barley 12.3
Oats 12
Corn 9
Millet 9
Milo 9
Rice, brown 7.5

Chicken feed can be purchased from most feed stores and while this may be a simple enough solution for most, it is our goal to produce chicken feed on-site so that we may decrease our dependece upon off-site materials and reduce our energy consumption.

The majority of chicken feed is produced through unsustainable, agricultural methods which rely heavily upon the use of petroleum. The proces behind producing, storing, and transporting feed is a very energy requiring process; by producing chicken feed on-site, on a small scale, we can avoid a lot of the energy inputs of conventional production.

By calculating the theoretical calorie yield of each crop intended for
chicken feed as well as their protein content, we can determine the
amount of required growing space for feeding the chickens. When it comes time to harvest the grains, and process them we will already have calculated how much to allocate towards the chickens. Then all we need to do is grind the grains and mix them accordingly. In the batch that we just prepared we used a combination of Peredovik Sungflowers seeds, Sorghum, Millet, and Ground corn.

Hand powered Corona Mill

[video]

Corn Millet

Peredovik Sunflower Dale Sorghum

Chicken Feed

Brookside Farm has accomplished an initial goal of getting
our veggies to young children and into a local institution! North Coast
Opportunities pre-school has agreed to purchase two shares from the CSA at
Brookside Farm. The kitchen staff is looking forward to utilizing fresh farm
produce and cooking according to the harvest season. It is exciting to see that there is demand
for our produce and the goods of a Relocalized food system.

View of North Coast Opportunities Preschool

To meet the demands of the CSA, we set to work preparing our
first beds in order to transplant spinach and lettuce and to direct seed
onions, beets, carrots, lettuce, and parsnips. We removed cover crops with a
scythe, broke the soil with the low-wheel cultivator, loosened the soil with
the broadfork, and cross cut a final time with the low-wheel cultivator in
order to ready vegetable beds. The following is the sowing dates and area for
the crops that we direct seeded.

Direct Seeding Beets by Hand

According to our planting schedule, March was slated to be one
of the most active months in the greenhouse. Lettuce, cabbage, chard, spinach,
kale, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and tomatillo were on the list of a
scheduled 1600 starts. Unfortunately, we had poor germination on many of the
starts that were seeded early in the month (kale, spinach, and cabbage). We
monitored the Max-Min thermometer in the greenhouse and were noticing overnight
lows in the 30 and daily highs in the 70’s. After considering what might have
led to the poor germination and we finally concluded that the average soil temperatures
and nighttime temperatures were too cold. We utilized the warming temperatures
toward the middle of March to catch-up on the plants that did not do so well
earlier in the month and continued to sow starts to remain on pace with our
greenhouse schedule. By the second week of the month we had sown our peppers
and tomatoes in David Drell’s greenhouse. David used electric heating mats to
secure sufficiently warm germination temperatures, and by the end of the month
we had excellent stands of little peppers and tomatoes awaiting transplant from
their seed-flats into four-inch pots. It was amazing to see the difference
between plants started with the heated soil mats and those that fended for
themselves in the early part of March.

Tomatoes and Peppers in Four-Inch Pots

This month we also began a relationship with a local welder
to make adjustments to our low-wheel cultivator and the broadfork. Last year we
had a terrible time shearing off
the bolt that connected the stirrup hoe implement to the low-wheel
cultivator. Kevin, at KLR welding, suggested that he weld a small plate near
the back of where the stirrup hoe connects to the frame. By adding the plate
excess and needless motion has been eliminated, the implement base remains
rigid, and we have significantly reduced the threat of shearing the bolt. We
are also asking Kevin to weld reinforced tines onto the broadfork. This should
make the tines sturdier and less apt to bend and break off as they did last
year.

Glaser Hoe with Metal Block to Limit Excess Movement

Broadfork with Reinforced Tines

I saw this today, had a morbid laugh, then got pensive.

(cartoonists web site: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/cartoons.aspx#cararch)

A couple of years ago, biofuels were hot. There were the promoters touting "green" fuels, getting off "foreign oil" and helping "American farmers." A perfect set of environmental, geopolitical and populist allies created a basket of incentives to boost corn-based ethanol production.

A few of us were decrying this as bad policy. The net energy of ethanol was around break even, so it couldn't be climate neutral or help with oil dependency. The rise in food prices would impact the poor around the world, causing much pain and unrest that could destabilize nations. And American farmers would go through another painful boom-bust cycle rather than transition to a sustainable agriculture system that is realistic about energy constraints.

Other issues are exposed by this fiasco. Why is it that so many people ARE dependent on cheap, often imported grains (especially in Africa)? Some have ridiculed the local food movement for potentially depriving farmers in the developing world of their markets in the wealthy nations. But if these developing nations are ones who can't feed themselves, shouldn't we ask if it might be better for them to focus on food self-sufficiency rather than production for export? Especially if our energy and financial policies can cut them off from our food so blithely.

Take a look at not only corn in the fuel tank, but coffee, tea, coconuts, palm oil, cane sugar, papayas, bananas, out of season vegetables, etc. All these tropical products may be produced in places dependent upon trade for money that is used to buy imported staples such as grains. What if they decided to relocalize instead? Would they be better off?